[Stable] Nicoras' Mac: H370M Bazooka + Vega 56 | OpenCore-based

[Nicoras]

MSI-H370M-BAZOOKA - MSI Vega 56 Air Boost
Compatible with Mojave and Catalina

Components
* Orange items are interoperable, meaning that you can decide on getting another model/brand of that component.

MSI H370M BAZOOKA mATX Motherboard - BHPhotoVideo / Amazon / Newegg

Intel Core i5-8400 Processor (Any other 8th gen would do) - Newegg / Amazon
Intel Core i7-8700 ES (Engineering Sample) Processor (Any other 8th gen would do) - Aliexpress / ebay

Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 Desktop Memory Kit 2666MHz (8GB x 2) - Newegg / Amazon
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4 Desktop Memory Kit 3200MHz (16GB x 4) - Newegg / Amazon

Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5' Internal Hard Disk Drive (SATA / 7200 RPM) - Newegg / Amazon
WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD40EFRX - Newegg / Amazon

CRUCIAL MX500 2.5" SSD - Newegg / Amazon
Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 - Newegg / Amazon

EVGA SUPERNOVA 650G+ GOLD MODULAR PSU - Newegg / Amazon

MSI Radeon RX Vega 56 Air Boost 8G OC - Newegg / Amazon

Cryorig C7 CR-C7A 47mm CPU Fan - Newegg / Amazon

NZXT S340 Elite Computer Case - Amazon
Corsair Crystal Series 280X RGB - Newegg / Amazon

Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD w/ the adapter to PCI-e - OSXWifi



Already Owned
Prism+ W270 monitor - Prism+


Introduction

There are only two reasons for me to get a hackintosh.

1. To budget it out, pay less for a Mac and more for the specs.
2. To max it out at the best price possible.

For this build, you'll be maximising your budget; An affordable motherboard with generally compatible components would help us in the long run to get things running smoothly. I recommend that you stick to an i3, RX580 and 16GB of RAM (Preferably <2600MHz) to make sure you don't break the bank.

I've been running this build for 1 year 2 months now (I actually posted on medium) and I haven't had the courage to share this build in its entirety until i'm sure that it runs stable for a long period of time. This build is affordable, fast, quiet, and suits my testing needs for my gaming and development needs, catered for developers.

What doesn't work or ain't tested?

• Not implemented yet
  • CFG Lock
• Not Working
  • If there is, post it here!

Pre-Installation Configuration

BIOS - Ensure you are on the latest BIOS version (The factory version; The very first one, has issues with IGD Multi-monitor when enabled.)

• Settings/PCI Subsystem Settings/Above 4G Decoding - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/Integrated Graphics Configuration/Initiate Graphics Adapter - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/Integrated Graphics Configuration/Integrated Graphics Share Memory - 64MB
• Settings/Advanced/Integrated Graphics Configuration/IGD Multi-monitor - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/Thunderbolt(R) Configuration - Disabled (Yes we need to disable Thunderbolt completely)
• Settings/Advanced/USB Configuration/USB Controller - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/USB Configuration/XHCI Hand off - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/USB Configuration/Legacy USB Support - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/Windows OS Configuration/Windows 10 WHQL Support - Enabled
• Settings/Advanced/Windows OS Configuration/Fast Boot - Disabled
• Settings/Advanced/Windows OS Configuration/MSI Fast Boot - Disabled
• OC/CPU Features/CFG Lock - Disabled
• OC/CPU Features/Intel VT-D Tech - Disabled

Create your USB installer, prepare the necessary drivers and configurations on Clover and install macOS:

1. Download macOS Mojave Sierra installer via App Store from a Mac or hackintosh.
2. Download UniBeast.
3. Initialize your USB flash drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it USB.
4. Launch UniBeast and let it create your USB installer.
5. When finished, replace the EFI folder in the EFI partition with the one attached to the bottomof this post.
   • Be sure to replace any SMBIOS-related configurations with your own one.
     • I've been following Dortania's guide to get it up, you just need to follow this section specifically.
       
     • This will ensure that you have a unique serial.
6. Be sure to only use a USB 3.0 port to boot to your USB. Chassis ports that are 3.0 are fine too.

* Nothing much to explain regarding my EFI partition, since I've already had mine pre-configured, why not use it right?



Post Installation

Audio is now baked in boot args via -alcid=1 is now patched.
I’m following this guy’s guide and it seems to work well. ALC887 is a pretty common piece of audio ding.

iMessage
We've come a long way. With the introduction of an OpenCore EFI iteration, this guide will help you breeze through.

If you’re experienced, follow this

This is a relatively straightforward fix. Following a day of research, this forum discussion best explains the resolution. Our configuration does not have native NVRAM support (I suspect its due to MSI) and would thus require that approach to make iMessage and Facetime work, don’t worry just follow what I’ve written below;

1. Follow this guide and do NOT restart when they say so. This clears all cache and configurations related to the iCloud family that relates to iMessage and etc.
2. Install the drivers for NVRAM support via Clover Configurator (Mount your EFI partition; Head to the ‘Install Drivers’ section and you’ll see EmuVariableUEFI-64.]. Source
3. Done!

Routine Tasks
Be sure to run setup_var 0x6F5 0x00 on every BIOS change/macOS boot when coming from Windows (Or any other OS in fact). This is due to the fact that we are using the 'cleaner' approach for CFG Lock rather than using the patch (I would recommend that if you want less of a hassle, but it was stated that the current approach we take is more stable).

Ports

Over the past 6 months, another leap in the USB configuration side of things for hackintosh have been made. It is now extremely easy to propagate a SSDT on your own. Feel free to set it up on your own if you don't share the same parts (Like your case) as I do from here.

NZXT Tower Ports

1. HS09 (Nearest to power button) - USB 2.0 Tower Port
2. HS10 (Beside HS09) - USB 2.0 Tower Port
3. SS06 (Beside HS10) - USB 3.0 Tower Port
4. SS05 (Beside SS06 - USB 3.0 Tower Port

Motherboard Ports (All directions are according to, when the motherboard is placed inside your case)

1. HS07 (Beside HS08) - USB 2.0 Motherboard Port
2. HS08 (Beside LAN Port) - USB 2.0 Motherboard Port
3. HS03 (Below HS08) - USB 3.1 Gen1 Motherboard Port
4. HS04 (Below HS07) - USB 3.1 Gen1 Motherboard Port
5. HS02 (Beside SS01) - USB 3.1 Gen1 TypeC Motherboard Port
6. SS01 (Beside HS02) - USB 3.1 Gen1 Motherboard Port

Troubleshooting

• Input lag after waking up from idling - EFI 130520 onwards has functional sleep, lock without any lag after wake.
• When many programs are open, sudden Kernel Panic (KP)
  • Possible solutions
    • https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/random-kernel-panic-by-ioscsiperipheraldevicetype05.288584/

Contributions

Native NVRAM

Greetings all! I just came across this thread and thought I'd contribute as I also use the MSI H370M Bazooka. Recent updates have made native NVRAM possible on all 300 series chipsets based motherboards. For the Bazooka, however, the MSR will need to be unlocked. I'm using firmware version 1.30 and the MSR address is 0x5C0 Use the attached file, unzip, and copy to EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched
Detailed instructions on unlocking are here

And a side note: don't forget to do proper USB fixes (ACPI patches) for your hack!

Versions
v1.0 - EFI.zip, Compatible up to 10.14.3.
v1.1 - 270419-EFI.zip, Compatible up to 10.14.4.
v1.2 - 101019-EFI.zip, Compatible up to 10.14.4, final EFI partition before Catalina.
v1.3 - 10.15-111019-EFI.zip, Compatible with 10.15.
v1.4 - 290320-EFI.zip, Compatible up to 10.15.4.
130520 / OpenCore - First OC iteration
200520 / OpenCore - Finally actually working properly. lol

Updates

Spoiler: 9 January 2019

macOS 10.14.2 Update can be installed just like a mac. Take note that there'll be two restarts during the installation process and you'll have to make sure you select the Installation partition.

Spoiler: 23 April 2019

From now on, we will be leveraging on the ApfsDriverLoader for APFS support.

security update 2019 High Sierra does require apfs.efi file updated?

Hello Please don't close this as duplicate because on the other forum topic no one is replying to my specific question and I need an advise on how to move on. In 2018 there was a security update 10.13.6 which i have installed the other day as I usually wait a bit before updating, now I see...

www.tonymacx86.com

Take note that utilising the conventional apfs.efi driver will result in this

Will be including a new updated EFI folder on this thread that will support 10.14.4. Updates to FakeSMC and the other kexts are required in other to make 10.14.4 work.

Spoiler: 29 March 2020

I have been really busy with work lately thanks to COVID-19, really sorry guys please bear with me. I've started work on the SSDT for this build give me a little bit more time.

There's a new EFI backup zip I have attached here. Feel free to use it (If you have the same case as I do as well), else you will have to get your SSDT done!

Spoiler: 13 May 2020

I've started work on getting OpenCore to work instead. On my previous couple of bootloader versions,

1. Graphics is buggy, playing games like Dota 2 causes random reboots.. without fail
2. NVRAM was horrendous lol, idk what I was doing until today, took an hour to finally get what NVRAM does and how does it work on 300 series boards.
3. Headless iGPU should be the way the way to go, didn't have the time to realise that it died after the switch to the first Catalina update.

The above issues have been properly addressed. The system boots up much faster now.

Not working

• Complete Audio -
  • What's the problem?
    • Audio works, just not when you are doing multiple audio outputs concurrently. (ATM, opening a game while having a voice chat could isolate the audio to the voice chat and the OS, causing you to lose in-game audio) - I haven't played around with the various ALC IDs
  • What is functioning as expected?
    • System Audio
      • You can overlap this with programs like Spotify, no problems found. (Vice versa) Beeps output as usual when there ain't any issues popping up.
  • AppleALC Troubleshooting
    • alcid=1
      • Problems with isolation (Multi-audio output is buggy)
        • Reproduction methods
          • The Dota 2 Way
            • Open Spotify, play something
            • Open a game (Preferably Dota 2, ensure its starting with Vulkan)
            • Get in a Discord voice channel (Or any other voice chat apps)
            • Go to settings in Dota 2
            • Voila, reproduced.
          • The easy way
            • Open Spotify, play something
            • Open System Preferences/Sound
              • Move around Sound Effects, Output and Input Menus
            • Voila, reproduced.
    • alcid=2: Same as 1
    • alcid=3: Same as 1

I've also updated the thread, added what works or doesn't work, what BIOS configurations to do (granular)

Spoiler: 14 May 2020

Changes

1. HPET IRQ patching
   • This fixes ALC as well.

Spoiler: 20 May 2020

Changes

1. Semi-proper CFG Lock implementation - This is the only "clean" fix I've looked around so far. It's very manual because every BIOS change requires the setup_var command to be executed again.
   • CFG Lock Address for BIOS 7B24v18 - 0x6F5 -> Command to run in Modified GRUB Shell: setup_var 0x6F5 0x00
     • IMPORTANT!

       Do note that variable offsets are unique not just to each motherboard but even to its firmware version. Never try to use an offset without checking.

2. General configuration tweaking - Compliance with OC for Coffee Lake.
3. Airport Extreme PCIe Kext Injections (AirportBcrmFixup, etc.)
4. Proper SMBUS Support via ACPI Patching
5. Merged EC and USBX ACPI Patch
6. Disabling real EC, fixing the random freeze issues
7. NVRAM ACPI Patch

 

[freezingbore]

@Nicoras, I have MSI H370M Bazooka + i3-8350K, the same mobo as you have. I stuck at the err (apfs module start:1334), searching the forum, all pointing at the USB settings. which USB port do you use while installing. Should I just use your EFI folder?

 

[Nicoras]

@Nicoras, I have MSI H370M Bazooka + i3-8350K, the same mobo as you have. I stuck at the err (apfs module start:1334), searching the forum, all pointing at the USB settings. which USB port do you use while installing. Should I just use your EFI folder?

Yup. That's right, make use of the EFI folder I shared. Shouldn't be a problem if you're using an AMD Mobo.

Be sure to use a USB 3.0 port.

 

[freezingbore]

Thanks for the reply. I have tried your EFI files to install the new macOS 10.14.1, error still exists.
I have updated MSI BIOS to the latest version.

Here is my hardware profile and EFI files.
|MSI H370M Bazooka;
|i3-8350K
|WD HDD SATA3 2T (only one HDD)
|R9 280X 3GB

 

[freezingbore]

I ordered a 19 pin to USB 3.0 cable. I will try to install it to the motherboard and see it works or not.

 

[javilander]

Hi. Thanks for sharing. If I use an Nvidia card, should I change something in your EFI partition?

 

[Nicoras]

I ordered a 19 pin to USB 3.0 cable. I will try to install it to the motherboard and see it works or not.

Apologies, have been out in the forests for a month for a good break.

You need to install macOS via USB3. No other workaround for that as far as I have tried.

Hi. Thanks for sharing. If I use an Nvidia card, should I change something in your EFI partition?

You just need to make sure WhateverGreen is setup. However, I don't have a NVIDIA card to play around with so I'll need your help to document that experience.

 

[freezingbore]

Solved the APFS 1344 problem by downgrade BIOS ver back to the original.
@Nicoras Have you tried to use UHD630 as headless GPU for HEVC acceleration, using Intel FB-Patcher? Adjusting is difficult for me, any help.

 

[freezingbore]

With Intel FB-Patcher, setting as below, headless UHD630 without connectors set and without any patch select. IORegistry shows IGPU@2 appleintelframebuffercontroller. so is ok IGPU be driven? Any setting adjust?

 

[Bardok84]

Hi mate, I got the same configuration but after preparing the bootable usb, I select to install and the screen get freezes with apple logo.

I just cannot find in my BIOS settings this root,

• Boot/Secure Boot/ OS Type - Other OS

There is not this option! WHy? can be this the problem?